In a turn that should surprise exactly no one, the BIRD Group’s Tess Lawrie effortlessly pivots from promoting ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19 to promoting it as a cure for cancer. It’s another example of how single-issue quacks almost inevitably embrace more diverse quackery.
Over the last several months, antivaxxers have been claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer”, cancers (or cancer recurrences) of a particularly aggressive and fast-growing variety diagnosed in younger and younger patients. “Turbo cancer” is not a thing, and the evidence cited is as weak as any antivax “evidence”, including anecdotes and misinterpretation of epidemiology.
After using old antivax tropes against COVID-19 vaccines, antivaxxers are pivoting to reuse them to attack measles vaccines again. Everything old is new again—and old again.
Minerva published an op-ed disguised as a “study” decrying “censorship and defamation.” It was really just criticism and quality control, but the usual suspects are all over it as evidence of evil.
This month Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo released a non-peer-reviewed “study” that recommends against males aged 18 to 39 receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines based on bad epidemiology and science. This is the first time that we’ve seen a state government weaponize bad science to spread antivaccine disinformation as official policy, a dangerous new escalation in antivaccine propaganda.
